One of the great things about working on my cruise ship is that even if I am frequently unable to get off the ship as often as I would like, there are certain things I could still consider a "Hawaiian Experience" without having to step foot outside the vessel.
Well - 2 things in particular.
1. The Currently Erupting Kilauea Volcano in the Big Island
I believe the term they used to describe the activity was - "gurgling lava"... which is a pretty cool visual of what is currently going on over there!
So - this active volcano, Kilauea, has been literally ON FIRE for the past couple months. Our ship docks at the Big Island on the Hilo side on Tuesdays, then over to the Kona side on Wednesdays. On Tuesday evenings as we make the sail from Hilo to Kona, we swing by the area where the Volcano is. See image below...
So - this active volcano, Kilauea, has been literally ON FIRE for the past couple months. Our ship docks at the Big Island on the Hilo side on Tuesdays, then over to the Kona side on Wednesdays. On Tuesday evenings as we make the sail from Hilo to Kona, we swing by the area where the Volcano is. See image below...
As we get closer to this hot mess, the ship turns out all our external lights to give us a better visual of the volcano.
One Tuesday night, I made the effort to stay up until 9:45pm (I know... wild, right?) to see this visual spectacle. I was told that the best view of it is from the bow of the ship (read: the area of the ship where Rose and Jack did the "I'm the King of the World" bit), and so I sashayed my way all the way forward and braced myself.
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| www.wanderlustcreations.com |
This photo was taken by Carley, our photo manager... and she used her telescope-like lens to be able to capture these images. My phone, unfortunately does not have the shooting power to match these. I honestly didn't even bring my phone. I went up there purely for the experience.
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| This photo was taken by another one of our photographers, Sierra Schmidt :) |
OK - seeing the erupting volcano from the ship was pretty cool. Yeah, it's an experience for the books, not many of us can say we've approached an erupting volcano from the ocean in a powerful vessel... But that evening, what made an impression on me wasn't the volcano - but the stars.
There was hardly any light pollution because the ships lights were out, and so I basically saw a night scattered with a billion stars, as close as I thought I could ever get to them.
It was beautiful...
I'm not gonna lie... I had an infinite moment... Maybe shed a tear or two.
I wish I had a photo to share... But it basically looked like this:
2. The View of the Na Pali Coastline
On Friday afternoons at 5:30pm, as our ship returns to Honolulu from the island of Kauai, we swing by an area where we could get a full view of the Na Pali Coastline.
The Na Pali Coast is a 15 mile stretch of rugged coastline, most of which is inaccessible due to the cliffs that drop straight down to the ocean... The best way to view it is - you guessed it! From my ship! Yeah, you can hike parts of it... But you won't be able to get spectacular photos like these... which I actually took from my phone!
Isn't it beauuuutiful?
Jurassic Park and World and Pirates of the Caribbean used this beauty in some of their scenes... Oooh and King Kong, too...
It may just look like a random landscape, but it's really *really* beautiful. You only get this view from a ship, and we are really lucky to be experiencing this every Friday!
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| It was a still day. Hardly any wind. |
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| I look like I've been photoshopped |
So that's 2 purely Hawaiian things we get to experience on our ship without having to get off at all! Works out great for Lazy Luna's like me :)
Whale season is coming up soon. Whale watching from the ship doesn't sound too bad either...
Wish me luck!
